


Drunken Fun and All That Happy Horseshit

by FrostyEmma, soup_illustrations (potofsoup)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers Feels, Captain America Reverse Big Bang 2017, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Digital Art, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Sex Work, Wartime Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2017-05-22
Packaged: 2018-11-03 06:57:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10962057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrostyEmma/pseuds/FrostyEmma, https://archiveofourown.org/users/potofsoup/pseuds/soup_illustrations
Summary: Everything was spiraling out of control, and Bucky didn’t know how to stop it. Didn’t know how to take any of it back or make it go away.“Look, just…” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Just forget I said anything, okay? You’re standing up to bullies. You’re doing the right thing.” He tried to smile. “What’s done is done. No going back.”After a few bottles of cheap booze and some coaxing from Steve, Bucky finds himself opening up. About everything. (Which means what for them...?)An artistic collaboration for Captain America Reverse Big Bang 2017!





	Drunken Fun and All That Happy Horseshit

**Author's Note:**

> It was a pleasure to collaborate with potofsoup for the Captain America Reverse Big Bang 2017. She brought the gorgeous art, I brought the fic, and together we present you angsty wartime Steve and Bucky (with kissing! and booze!). Enjoy!
> 
> I'd also like to add that potofsoup then surprised me with even MORE gorgeous art that she added to this story. And it makes the story that much better! 
> 
> I'd also like to thank my usual betas - Firebirdscratches and my partner, who prefers to remain nameless - for reading and commenting on my endless reams of angst and yet still be willing to talk to me after!

Bucky was drunk as shit.

Except that he really wasn’t.

At all.

Not that he hadn’t been _trying_. He was on his fourth or fifth (or who the fuck knew? He had long stopped counting) pint of the warm piss water the British called beer, he had tossed back several celebratory shots of this or that, and Dugan kept coming back to the table with bottles of scotch and whiskey, insisting that everyone drink them down to the last drop.

He even managed to acquire a bottle of some swanky-looking cognac with one of those unpronounceable French names.

Which of course Dernier wanted everyone to pronounce, and correctly. He tapped on the label pasted to the bottle and said something that sounded like, “Coov-wah-say.”

Gabe replied with a whole stream of fucking French, and Dernier laughed, and before long they were going back and forth in a steady patter while Dugan poured everyone a glass of Courvoisier.

So that Bucky could get even drunker. 

Of course. 

Just like everyone else.

“A gentleman’s drink at last.” Falsworth smiled his easy smile from underneath that pencil-thin mustache and lifted the glass to his lips. He looked like he belonged in some fancy, upscale bar, trying to impress a pretty dame, instead of the dark, smoky rat trap they were currently holed up in. “Though what I wouldn’t give for a halfway decent gin.”

“Gin?” Morita snorted loudly. He’d been drunker than the rest of them, and for longer. “Tastes like turpentine. Gimme Dugan’s single-malt any day.”

“Used to drink it with my breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day when I was on the road.” Dugan grinned broadly and pushed the brim of his hat up off his forehead. “Puts hair on your chest and muscle on your arms, boys. You take one look at me and disagree.”

Bucky looked at him, mind working furiously to come up with something witty to say. He was _drunk_ , after all, and the Howlies were on leave, out for a night on the town to have _fun._

Drunken fun, and all that happy horseshit.

Luckily Gabe beat him to the punch.

“Whiskey isn’t where I got my muscles from.” He chuckled, even as he took another hit of the cognac. “There’s nothing that builds muscle like a willing, pretty girl. Especially the abdominals.” He set down his glass a bit clumsily and started unbuttoning his shirt, to a storm of laughter.

Bucky mustered up a laugh from somewhere inside himself and ignored how hollow it sounded to his ears.

Luckily everyone else was drunk and laughing and having a good time, and Jesus fucking Christ Almighty, when had he become such a goddamn killjoy?

Sergeant Mopey Sonuvabitch Barnes. That was him.

He chased the thought away with a swig of cognac, which burned on the way down, but in a good, enlivening kind of way.

“Pity the Captain couldn’t make it out this evening...” 

It took Bucky a moment to realize Falsworth was speaking directly to him, not addressing the whole group. Which made sense, as the whole group was otherwise occupied; Dernier was jabbering at Gabe in machine-gun French and trying to keep him from taking any more of his clothes off, and the rest of them were either roaring with laughter or trying to find out where the nearest whorehouse was. 

“I’d imagine he’d have wanted to be out with us if you were,” Falsworth continued.

Bucky cast him a sidelong glance and tipped back more of the cognac. “That so?”

“Isn’t it?” Falsworth nursed his own drink, his eyes shrewdly on Bucky’s. “I’ve yet to see the day a man’s best mate wouldn’t want to drink his way through town with him of an evening.”

“Well,” Bucky forced something like a smile onto his face, “it just so happens he’s a busy, busy guy with a multitude of interests to occupy his time.”

Like Agent Carter. In her red dress. Showing him those dance moves that Bucky had never quite been able to teach Steve back in Brooklyn.

The strength of his own - bitterness? ugliness? he didn’t have a word for what he was feeling - surprised him, and he chased that newish, awful feeling away with another mouthful of cognac.

“Looks like the Sergeant’s found a winner.” Dugan grinned, his handlebar mustache seeming to bristle like a walrus’, and leaned over to refill Bucky’s glass with more of the cognac. “Plenty more where that came from, Sarge. Drink up; you’ve earned it.” He raised the bottle to the table. “We all have, ain’t that right?”

Another roar went up from the Howlies, and Bucky was just about goddamn done for the evening. He wasn’t drunk, his head didn’t hurt, and he wouldn’t have a roaring hangover the next morning.

Something was deeply fucking wrong with him.

_“Sergeant Barnes,” the doctor whispered, peering down at him through owlish spectacles that Bucky had learned to be terrified of, “tell me when it hurts.”_

No.

No, no, no.

He picked up his glass of cognac and gulped it down in one burning mouthful, to the appreciative cheers of the rest of the Howlies. He slammed the glass down on the table, eyes watering, and Gabe laughed and slapped him on the back, and Dugan said something or other, and weren’t they just having so much fucking _fun_?

“All right.” Gabe stood up suddenly, knocked back the last of his cognac, and set the glass down on the table with a loud _thock!_ that echoed like a gunshot. “Who’s for finding some company for the evening?”

“Meaning the kind you have to pay for?” Morita looked up, very obviously sloshed. “‘Cause if you do, we need to get a move on. While I can still count my money.”

“I know a place,” Dugan chimed in as he tossed off the rest of his drink and upended his glass on the table. “Somebody help me get Fresno Ace here on his feet.”

“Hey, fuck you,” Morita said without heat, a sloppy smile on his face. He didn’t protest when Dugan and Falsworth hauled him to his feet either.

Bucky made sure to grab the half-empty bottle of scotch off the table before they all stumbled out of the pub. Couldn’t let that shit go to waste.

Maybe it would even get him drunk eventually. 

He let Gabe and Dugan lead the way; they seemed to know where all the good places were. Before long, they were on a street where a seemingly endless variety of so-called ‘procurable women’, dressed to the nines in black market finery, called to them from doorways and windows. 

“What’d I tell you, Sarge?” Dugan had drained off a good portion of the rest of the bottle of cognac along the way, and he sure sounded like it. “Cuddle cuties as far as the eye can see.”

“Yes, but make sure you have your prophos, chaps,” Falsworth said. “Don’t want to catch the VD, now do we?”

“Thanks, Pa.” Morita snorted drunkenly. “Just what I want to think about before I dip my wick.”

Dernier called out something to the girls that made both him and Gabe burst out into raucous laughter. Dugan lifted the bottle to his mouth again and swigged another mouthful, then saluted the girls at the second-floor windows with it, and the group started to break up. 

Gabe and Dernier headed into an arched doorway lit by pinkish light from inside, supporting Morita between them. Dugan staggered into another alcove, his hat falling askew as he picked a girl up bodily and carried her inside to a chorus of laughter. Falsworth arched a suave eyebrow at a girl across the street and turned back to Bucky before continuing on his way.

“See you back at the barracks, Sergeant.” He smiled. “Do try and make it out of here in one piece.” 

Bucky raised his eyebrows and blew out a booze-soaked breath. For a few brief seconds, he considered just turning around and heading back to the barracks to sleep off…

What, exactly?

He would end up laying on his cot, staring up at the ceiling and trying not to think too hard about anything.

_“I’ll need you fully conscious for the next procedure, Sergeant,” the doctor said, after Bucky had screamed and writhed himself into merciful darkness, only to be dragged back into terrified wakefulness. “Scream if you like, but do try to remain alert.”_

He pushed the memory aside, pushed everything else aside, and approached a smiling blonde with blue eyes and cherry red lips. And for a half hour at least, he could lose himself in the French bath she gave him with her warm, wet mouth, along with all the other sensations money and a uniform could buy.

The street was not at all quiet by the time he was through, but he was done for the evening. He walked back to the barracks alone, bottle of scotch dangling loose between his fingers and breath clouding in the frigid air. Hopefully Steve would be asleep and they wouldn’t have to talk; they were sharing a room now, which was above Bucky’s rank and pay grade, but no one was in a hurry to argue with Captain Fucking America over something so trivial.

Or maybe Steve would be out. Dancing somewhere. With a dame in a red dress.

Easier that way.

Turned out, Steve was wide awake, half-dressed in his formals, feet bare. He sat on the edge of his cot, scribbling something on a stack of papers atop a wooden crate that functioned as a desk.

Bucky leaned against the doorframe and looked at him for a long moment. He took a swig of scotch. “Shoulda come with us, Steve.”

“Sorry.” Steve didn’t look up from the pile of papers. “Had reports to file.”

He scratched away with his pen for another few seconds, then moved the top sheet of paper to the bottom of the stack and picked up the next sheet with a look on his face that said he’d rather be doing anything else at the moment. 

He sighed. “And I can’t get drunk anyway.”

Bucky stared at him silently. A litany of snappy comebacks flitted through his mind, but died before any of them reached his lips.

Something dark and unsettling whispered in the back of his mind instead, right as his stomach twisted into tight, sickening knots. He wanted to grab Steve by the shoulders and shake him. Shout at him - _what the fuck did they do, what the fuck did they do to both of us?_

Steve didn’t even look up from his goddamn papers, and Bucky swallowed his concerns down and made a show of staggering over to his cot and collapsing face down on top of it. He shifted slightly so he could look at Steve - still so engrossed in his paperwork.

The words were out of Bucky’s mouth before he could even consider why he was saying them.

“Remember how you puked on the Cyclone, but still went back for another round?” he said carelessly, gaze now intently focused on the bottle of scotch in his hand.

“Hmm?” The noise came from Steve’s direction, but Steve was obviously too captivated by whatever he was reading to have paid any attention.

Bucky resisted the urge to sit up and rip the damn papers out of Steve’s hands. Instead he flipped over onto his back and chugged most of the scotch down.

It burned like hell, but it was something.

“That’s me right now,” he said around the mouth of the bottle. And he was all set to swig back the rest of the bottle when it was suddenly lifted out of his hands. He managed a half-hearted “Hey!” but let his hand drop to the pillow, empty.

It was Steve. Of course it was Steve. There was exhaustion on his face - especially in his eyes - but there was the hint of a sad smile lurking in the corners of his mouth.

“Bucky, I was puking from all those drops and spins.” Something in Steve’s eyes reached out for Bucky. Something from the past, from the old neighborhood in Red Hook where Steve had still been a sickly, mouthy little punk and Bucky’s full-time job had been keeping him in one piece. 

Something from back when things still made sense.

“Not from drinking all of Dum Dum’s Scotch.” Steve set the bottle down pointedly on the corner of his crate, beside the mountain of papers he’d been busy with a moment ago, and smiled that sad, tired smile down at Bucky again. “Give it a rest, would you?”

And then before Bucky could say anything, Steve went right back to looking at the reports.

Bucky shifted onto his stomach and let his head sink into the soft pillow. It was a luxury, after all; before long, they’d be in the field again, sleeping outside in the dirt or the occasional bombed out building or abandoned farmhouse, if they were lucky. And that could last a few days or a few weeks, so better to just enjoy the few comforts while he could.

Better to keep his trap shut and leave Steve to his important work and his important position. Better to close his eyes and go to sleep, because the world needed this supposedly better, scientifically improved Steve very much. 

In the way that nobody needed Bucky.

Not really.

He felt small and sick and petty, and he wanted to reach for the scotch and banish all of the ugly thoughts and feelings. Maybe finishing off the scotch was the trick. Maybe he could finally be drunk enough to pass out for a while.

Or be drunk at all, even. He’d settle for that.

He braced his head against his fist. “Steve?”

Steve seemed completely absorbed in what he was reading. So much so that he didn’t take his eyes from the paper. “Yeah, Buck?”

He opened his mouth to ask for the scotch. What came out was, “Was it worth it?”

The question hung in the air between them, unavoidable and heavy enough to draw Steve’s eyes away from the paper.

Mentally Bucky kicked himself.

Aloud, he added, “The Cyclone, I mean?”

Steve smiled again, expelling a single puff of air through his nose in what might have been a chuckle. It was at times like that - when Bucky could concentrate on his face and not on the rest of him - that he still looked like Steve. 

His Steve. Mouthy punk from Brooklyn Steve.

“Yeah,” he said, shifting over on the bed so the crate was no longer between them. “After all, it taught me a whole other set of fears I could face.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?” Bucky smirked. This part was easy, after all. “Getting dizzy? Vomiting?”

“More like you ribbing me.” Steve smirked right back. “But now that you mention it, the dizziness and the vomiting did prepare me pretty well for how basic training made me feel.”

“That right?” Bucky raised an eyebrow. “A decade’s worth of summers going on the Cyclone really prepared you for that endless _week_ of basic training that you got?”

For fuck’s sake, the top brass had made the man a goddamn _captain_ , when he hadn’t even been able to disassemble his own pistol.

Steve rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well, that week pretty nearly killed me.” He chuckled. “A whole week of nothing but running and calisthenics and obstacle courses back when I was all of five feet four and a hundred pounds soaking wet?” He shook his head. “If Dr. Erskine had been looking for fitness, I sure as hell wouldn’t’ve made the cut.”

Bucky’s mouth thinned into a line at that. He searched for something funny to say - something about how Steve volunteering to be a fucking guinea pig was just goddamn _hilarious_ \- but nothing came immediately to mind, and the silence stretched out between them.

He sat up suddenly and reached for the scotch. “No sense letting this go to waste.”

“Aw, come on, Buck.” A pained look came over Steve’s face, and he reached out to put the palm of his hand over the mouth of the bottle, anchoring it to the crate. “That’s not what you need right now, and you know it.”

“Well, you know,” Bucky found a smile somewhere and slapped it onto his face, “I could go out and get me another cuddle cutie, but the last one cleaned me right out.”

Steve winced deeply - no question about it - and fixed Bucky with such a look of pity that Bucky was tempted to burrow into his cot and pull the scratchy blanket over his head. “Why are you doing this to yourself, Bucky?” he said sorrowfully. “How about talking to me instead?”

Bucky snorted. “Well, I don’t think you’re in the market for giving French baths, Stevie.”

Flippancy was easy. He could do flippancy. And he didn’t need Steve’s damn _pity_ anyway.

“I said _talking_ , Buck.” Steve sighed. “We both know you’re not so drunk you couldn’t understand me.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t looking to _talk_ , Steve. Besides,” he gestured to the reports on the crate, “you’ve been busy.”

He felt mean and sour, and it was making his stomach twist into knots, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself either. 

“Not so busy I can’t spare a minute for my best friend.” Steve didn’t even glance at the stack of papers on the crate. Instead, he got up and moved over to Bucky’s cot, sitting down on the edge and putting a hand on Bucky’s shoulder.

“Come on, Buck,” he said gently. “You never used to need to get lost in booze and loose women before; you don’t need it now.” Again the sad, tired smile. “All you and I ever needed was each other.”

“Yeah, well, I was never in the army before either.” Bucky snorted. “We’re all about the booze and loose women here, pal. Unless you got a dame, in which case,” he shrugged, “you just need the booze.”

He hated himself in that moment.

“We’re about more than that, and you know it.” Steve gave Bucky’s shoulder a squeeze, then began to rub his hand slowly back and forth between Bucky’s shoulderblades. “Even on bad nights. Even when you don’t have a dame and the booze won’t quiet things down. That’s when you need to look at what really matters.”

Bucky didn’t look at him. “You still talking about the army?”

“Yes. Maybe.” Steve sighed. “I don’t know. All I know is you’re trying to numb yourself and nothing’s working. More of the same isn’t going to work any better.”

“Come on, Steve.” Bucky pushed both hands through his hair and ended up with his head in his hands. 

Like some kind of pathetic mook. 

“I’m not trying to numb myself. I’m just…” He sighed, and the next few words were at least true. “I’m just tired.”

“So rest.” Steve shifted, sliding his arm around Bucky’s shoulders and gathering him in with a surprisingly strong one-armed hug. “If anybody’s earned it, you have. You’ve done more than your fair share. For Uncle Sam and me both.”

Bucky turned his head and breathed in Steve’s scent; he smelled starchy and crisp, and not at all like stale cigarettes and booze and cheap perfume. 

“Don’t give a damn about Uncle Sam,” he muttered into Steve’s shirt. “I’m not here for him.”

“I know, Buck.” Steve leaned his head down and rested it on top of Bucky’s. “I don’t know if any of us are still here for him. Maybe some of us started out that way, but now?” He sighed. “I know I’m here for the right reasons. The Nazis are evil, Hydra’s evil, Schmidt’s about as bone-deep evil as it gets, and we can’t let them win if we ever want to see even a flicker of good left in this world.” He tightened his arm around Bucky. “But that’s not the only reason I’m here. Not even the number one reason, anymore.”

Bucky sighed, his eyelids fluttering closed. Just for a moment, and then he would curl up on his cot and go to sleep and let Steve get back to his paperwork.

“What are you here for, Buck?” Steve asked quietly.

The silence stretched between them before Bucky found a safe answer. 

“It’s like you said, Stevie,” he murmured, without opening his eyes. “Hydra. Nazis. Flicker of good, yada yada. All that.”

“Yeah.” Steve blew out another puff of laughter through his nose and rested his chin atop Bucky’s head. “But I said that, not you.” He heaved a deep breath, sighing it out again, and seemed to settle into himself. “What keeps you going, Buck? What was it that kept you going until I found you in Italy? What’s been keeping you going ever since?”

Bucky cracked an eye open and scowled. “You ask a lot of questions.”

Steve dug his chin into the top of Bucky’s head. “And you don’t answer any of them.”

“Hey,” Bucky pulled away slightly and put his hand against Steve’s chin, lightly pushing him aside. “Watch where you point that thing, buddy. You’re gonna go putting holes in my head.”

“Seriously?” Steve looked down and grinned. “I thought I was a lot less sharp around the corners now.”

Bucky looked at him for a long moment. Licked his lips. “Force of habit, I guess. You get close, I expect jagged edges.”

“Hey, that’s all right.” Steve turned his head again, resting his temple against the crown of Bucky’s head. “Sometimes I still get up in the morning and look down, and I’m amazed at how far away the floor is.”

“Yeah.” 

Bucky was at a loss for words suddenly. What could he say? That sometimes he still looked at Steve and didn’t recognize him? That he missed the way things used to be?

That he was a small, selfish person, and he hated himself for it?

He said nothing at all.

“What is it, Bucky?” Steve shifted his head again, tightening his arm around him as he did. “Seriously. You’ve been holding out on me all night, and I wish you wouldn’t. If you tell me what’s on your mind, I can help you deal with it. I promise.”

The words burst out of him before he could stop himself.

“Was it worth it, Steve?” Bucky pulled away and looked at him with wide eyes. “Was it really worth it?”

Steve looked back at him for a long moment, his eyes searching for something in Bucky’s eyes. And when he found it, the look on his face changed from confusion to shock to saddened realization in the span of a second and a half.

“You mean the procedure.” Steve didn’t say it as a question. He sighed, his shoulders slumping, and waited a long moment before going on.

“My whole life, I was never healthy.” Steve shook his head slightly, his eyes unfocused. “You remember how often I was in bed. Pneumonia, measles, flu - even an ordinary fever’d knock me down for a week. And that’s not even counting the anemia or the asthma or any of the other stuff.” He snorted softly, jerking his chin at the crate that still held his forgotten paperwork. “Or the fact that I could barely lift an empty box like that, let alone one that might’ve had anything in it.”

Bucky said nothing, but it was too late. He was an idiot who shouldn’t have said anything to begin with.

Steve sighed again, shaking his head, and went on. “And worse, I couldn’t ever win any of the fights I got into. Not that I ever cared about getting beat up, but…” He held his breath, searching for the words, then blew out the air he’d been hanging onto. “The kind of people I was fighting, they were the kind who’d think winning the fight made them right. That everything I was saying, everything I was trying to stand up for was wrong. Because I didn’t have the muscle to back it up.”

“Well.” Bucky stood and jammed his hands into his pockets. “Now you have the muscle to back it up. And you’ve earned people’s respect, too.” 

He needed to put some distance between them. He took a few steps back, but any further, and he’d bump up against the door.

“Hell,” he forced a wobbly sort of grin onto his face, “you’re even famous. You got everything you wanted, Stevie.”

“I never wanted to be famous.” Steve stood up as well, an awful look coming over his face. A look of terrible sadness, as he reached out for Bucky with both hands. “I didn’t go through the procedure because I wanted people to notice me. I wanted to help, that’s all.” He took a step towards Bucky, and Bucky actually took a step back without thinking.

The look on Steve’s face nearly shattered him right there. 

“I just wanted to be able to do the right thing. Do the things that needed to be done.” Steve gave a choked little laugh and an attempt at a smile. “Stand up to bullies, just like I always did. The biggest bullies in the world, and maybe be able to win this time.”

Everything was spiraling out of control, and Bucky didn’t know how to stop it. Didn’t know how to take any of it back or make it go away.

“Look, just…” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Just forget I said anything, okay? You’re standing up to bullies. You’re doing the right thing.” He tried to smile. “What’s done is done. No going back.”

“But you wish I could.” Steve let his hands drop, that heartbreaking look still on his face. “Why, Bucky?”

Bucky leaned his back against the door and closed his eyes. He blew out a breath. “Because I wanted you to be safe.” He didn’t open his eyes. “I didn’t want you to be in the line of fire. I didn’t want you to be some patriotic poster boy for Uncle Sam. And I sure as hell didn’t want you to be anyone’s guinea pig.” A single breath of humorless laughter escaped his lips. “I didn’t want any of that for you.”

“Aw, Buck.” Steve sounded near to tears. “I never meant for any of that to happen. And I sure as hell never meant for anything bad to ever happen to you.” He stumbled towards Bucky, his arms reaching out for him again and gathering him into his arms. “I dropped the USO show in a heartbeat when I heard about what happened to you, and I would’ve gladly let them drum me right out if it meant you were safe.”

Bucky didn’t pull away. He probably should have, but he leaned into Steve’s embrace instead, burrowing his face against his neck and wrapping his arms around him.

He was so fucked. They both were.

“What happened to me wasn’t your fault,” he murmured into Steve’s neck. “And you know it.”

“And what happened to me wasn’t yours,” Steve replied, his voice muffled by Bucky’s neck and shoulder. His arms tightened around Bucky’s body, hugging him so tightly that Bucky felt his ribs flex. “I had to go after you, though. And you know it.”

Bucky sighed, and Steve shivered against him. “Yeah. I know it. You shouldn’t have, but no one’s ever been able to stop you from doing the stupid thing.” A beat, then, “Not even me.”

“Yeah.” Steve gave a shaky little laugh that seemed like it was fairly close to a sob. “I’m not too bright, am I?”

“Nope,” Bucky said automatically. “Not at all.”

Steve pulled back slightly from the embrace and looked right into Bucky’s eyes. He held that look for a long moment, his bright blue eyes seemingly searching for something. And finally, something decisive came into them.

“And I think I’m going to do another stupid thing right now.”

Steve leaned forward suddenly and kissed him. Full on the mouth. His hands went to the back of Bucky’s head and neck, strong but surprisingly gentle, his fingertips burrowing into Bucky’s hair. His lips were hard against Bucky’s, the tip of his tongue darting between them. And it was Steve.

It was Steve.

For a moment, Bucky allowed himself to get lost in the kiss. In the feel of Steve’s lips on his, in the taste of his mouth, and the scent of him, familiar and intoxicating all at once.

And then reality stepped in and slapped him roughly in the face.

“Steve,” he said breathlessly, pulling his head back so that it bumped against the door. “Stevie. It’s not that…” He licked his lips. Tried to catch his breath. “It’s not that I don’t want this…”

“You…” Steve’s eyes were wide, his breath coming in sharp pants. He looked close to panic. “You don’t… what?”

“It’s not that I don’t want this.” Bucky’s expression probably matched Steve’s. “But… you have a girl. A good one. And I don’t… I don’t want to be the one that…” He shook his head. “I’m not going to mess that up for you.”

“You won’t.” Steve said it immediately, which probably meant he’d said it automatically, which definitely meant he’d said it without thinking it through at all. And the look on his face in the next moment made that perfectly clear.

“Look,” he sighed. “I like Peggy an awful lot, I won’t argue about that-”

“We’re already arguing about that,” Bucky said. “And…” He sighed. “Dammit, Steve, you deserve to have that work out for you. You deserve to have a woman who looks at you the way she does.”

That much was true. Bucky believed that with everything he had. 

“But she’s not you, Buck.” Steve said it with all the earnestness and simple, heartbreaking honesty he’d ever put into anything he’d said. “I like her a lot, and I know she likes me, and maybe if that was all I cared about, things’d be fine. But she’s not you, and I was never looking to replace you with her. I just…” He sighed again, helpless frustration clear on his face. “I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I don’t know, but I swear to God I’ll figure something out. Because there’s no way I’m letting you go, not again.”

Bucky looked at him for a long, pained moment and then leaned forward, his forehead bumping gently against Steve’s. “We’ll figure something out,” he repeated. “When we get back.”

The reports Steve had been looking at were obviously important enough to have warranted so much of his attention, and that usually meant a mission was in their very immediate future. 

“Yeah,” Steve sighed, pressing his forehead back against Bucky’s and bringing his arms up to wrap lightly around Bucky’s waist. “Those papers I was reading when you came in - apparently Zola’s on a train heading to Austria. We’re going to bring him in.” He looked Bucky in the eyes, their foreheads still touching. “You and me. Together. And then we’ll figure it all out.”

A small smile flitted across Bucky’s lips. “Yeah, Stevie.” He clasped the back of Steve’s neck and breathed in the scent of him. “We’ll figure it all out.”

\---

“Are you sure about this?”

Steve honestly didn’t know why he was even bothering to ask; it was a terrible idea. After so many years, so many horrible experiences, and so many times being frozen and locked away until his next mission, Bucky was finally free. 

Why in the world would he have wanted to go back into a frozen sleep right at that moment? Why, when they were in a place where Bucky might actually be able to get the help he needed? 

“I can’t trust my own mind.” Bucky had a lost, haunted expression on his face that he tried to cover with the barest semblance of a smile. “So until they figure out how to get this stuff out of my head, I think going under is the best thing…” He looked at Steve with hollow eyes. “For everybody.”

Steve looked at him for a long moment, carefully weighing what he was about to say. He had to choose his words perfectly; the rest of Bucky’s life might hinge on them.

“That’s bullshit.” He folded his arms and looked Bucky square in the eyes. “Plain and simple. You want to do what’s best for everybody? Then instead of hiding, fight.”

Bucky’s eyes dropped to his lap. “I don’t want to fight anybody.”

“I meant fight against these things in your head that aren’t you.” Steve sighed and laid a hand on Bucky’s uninjured right shoulder. 

His metal arm was gone, the empty socket of it still covered by a black bandage. T’Challa had said his engineers would get right to work on a new one, but it was likely to take weeks. 

“Stay awake, stay with me, and let us actually figure out how to unfuck your head.”

Bucky snorted without heat and didn’t meet Steve’s gaze. He just seemed so… lost, and Steve wanted to wrap his arms around him and shield him from the world. Everything Bucky had experienced over the past seventy years had been painful, and he didn’t deserve any more of it. 

“Just…” Steve sighed. “Just give it a night. Can you do that for me, Buck? Just one night before you make a choice you might regret for a long time?”

For a long moment, Bucky didn’t respond. Then he finally looked up at Steve and nodded. “One night. I can do one night.”

Steve let out a long, slow sigh of relief, letting his shoulders sag and his head hang forward gratefully. And for a moment, it was enough to just be there with Bucky. After so much time, so much pain, and so much lost to them both, maybe they could do what they’d promised to do that last night in 1945.

“We can figure it out now, Buck.” His arms went around Bucky, and he lowered his head to rest against Bucky’s. “I promise. You and me. We’ll figure it out.”

Finally.

**Author's Note:**

> Art can also be found on tumblr here: <http://potofsoup.tumblr.com/post/160949009712/drunken-fun-and-other-happy-horseshit-fic-by>
> 
> Hit me with your best shot! Questions, comments, feedback, and angsting are always warmly welcomed, greatly appreciated, and highly hoped for!


End file.
